


Beautiful Loser

by Lastactiontricia



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 09:30:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20337916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lastactiontricia/pseuds/Lastactiontricia
Summary: How Dean learned the sexy ropes, pre-season 1





	1. Chapter 1

Dean’s a melancholy kind of lonely. He’s had half a dozen ideas- scamming these college jerks in pool, picking up that blonde chick in the mini skirt, but each new one that crops up- he discards. He’s tired, that bone weary-18-hour-shift kind of sensation settling into his bones, he’s worked the midnight stretch too long to put a front on. He thinks about getting his dick wet, but the effort seems monumental. These girls seem so young. Makes him feel a thousand years old, too many scars to explain, the lines around his eyes age him out of peer group elbow rubbing.   
When’s there’s a fresh whiskey put in front of him, he’s not complaining but he eyes the bartender long enough for her to get defensive. He hasn’t got enough cash for that. She points an impatient arm down the bar at a nook where a smoke encased woman sits in shadow. She lifts her glass and reciprocates his eyebrow smirk. He can’t raise that easy smile he hides behind, there’s a Sam shaped hole that’s only dwarfed by the Dad shaped one. John had left Dean here, he’d bungled a case and now he needed to boost a car and figure out where he’d gone, punishment and training wrapped in one. He’d be pissed if he wasn’t so used to it. At least he was old enough to drive now.   
He’s too irritated for company, which is why he’s surprised when he’s pushing up to follow the woman who’d bought him the drink outside. He sees her already open pack of cigarettes…that itchy I want something, but I don’t know what it is feeling has its claws in him and when he opens his mouth-She’s already got a cigarette out.  
The relief is palpable, he doesn’t even need to shake out his threadbare charm.   
They spend at least ten minutes in absolute silence. One cigarette turns into two and Dean relaxes with the realization that she can just be here and not have to fill the void with noise. When they go back inside, he craves it, that silent camaraderie that makes him feel not alone without having to work so hard for it. They keep drinking whiskey, she buys. If she keeps it up, he’s going to prove the name of the dive right -Stagger Inn.   
It’s last call and she finally speaks, “You wanna get outta here?“ It’s a familiar question with an unfamiliar beginning and Dean’s got no money for a room so he just nods. When she climbs into an old Ford truck, a ‘53 by the anniversary grill, Dean’s impressed enough that he thinks he can fake it through tonight. He’ll give up her money’s worth. He always does.  
“Windsor?” He asks, listening to it fire up.  
“Cleveland. And before you ask, yeah, it’s on a 9 bolt, modernized brakes.”  
He gapes at her a bit, enough for her to crack a wise grin at him. Focusing too much on the pleased leer he’s sporting, he swings a leg up too high and almost lands on his ass, “man, the top shelf shit sneaks up on you pretty fast,” He thinks it aloud and she barks out a laugh, loud and genuine and it makes him realize he’s fucked. Fucked here being both too drunk and too into this to make it last.  
She’s older, that much he can ascertain. There are a few grey wisps in that short hair, the beginning of lines around her eyes. Pre-aging almost. Mid-thirties if he’d had to guess. Hair cut must be fresh, she keeps fingering it like it used to be longer. A fresh spell of wooziness comes over him, half a bottle of good whiskey and no food to soak it up. He’d knock her bottom out for a cheeseburger right about now.   
Like she’s reading his mind she pulls through drive thru, orders them both a heart attack to go, and when the food comes, she parks in the lot knowing that whatever this is, it doesn’t last under fluorescent lighting.   
About halfway thru the burger she half turns, not even slurring, ” We don’t have to do anything, you know that right.“   
“That’s my line,” he leers back at her  
Another one of those throaty laughs snakes out and Dean’s dick writhes a little. That burger must have resurrective powers.   
“So, I’m Mer,” She holds out a hand and surprises Dean with the firmness of her grip.  
“Dean.”   
“So, Dean, saw you miss a few groundballs in there, figured you either weren’t interested or holding out for a better offer. “  
“Sweetheart, you’re the best offer other than this cheeseburger,” He waves it up over crinkling the paper in enthusiasm.   
Her smile turned cutting, “Don’t need all that sweetheart shit, Darlin.”   
Deans confidence is running lower with every mile, he’s tired and there’s a mild earthquake happening in his guts that isn’t promising. The more he tries to maintain, the sweatier and more urgent he feels like- maybe, he should just sleep.   
Mer looks over at him, ”You going to puke buddy? Ya got a window.”  
Dean narrows his eyes at her- he’s a fucking adult, a hunter for chrissake. He is not going to puke out of a moving truck window, especially not in a god damn 1953 F100. Fixing his head on where he thinks the horizon might be, Dean does what he knows best to do, and pushes it down. They finally make it down the longest lane road Dean’s ever found the patience for; he’s been psyching himself up for a dose of blow this older chick’s mind. He manages to get his own ass out of the truck with a modicum of grace and attempts to palm her hips, smoothing over her ass. She turns an irritated eye back, key still out and he realizes he’s fucked up her opening the door.   
“Easy cowboy, I don’t need to be tenderized before you prestart the oven.”  
It freezes Dean in his tracks, but to his credit, he’s always been able to adjust quickly. He plucks the key from her, finesses the door open and holds an arm out in invitation. Once she gets inside, he takes her purse before she can shrug out of it, lays it on the little table there for safekeeping.   
He’s proud of it and she laughs at the facial expression she’s used to seeing on one of her dogs- I did good, didn’t I? There’s practically a wagging tail. God, he’s young to still have the face. Training had obviously been on the menu, but she thought maybe she’d bitten off more than she could chew. When he kisses her slow and deep, only staggering a bit on those unsteady whiskey legs, a sigh comes out despite herself. This part, man, no pointers there. That boy can work a tongue like the devil can play a fiddle. She pats his face, praise evident, and in his state he’s too pleased with it to be insulted.   
The rest of the night is, while endearingly earnest, sloppy. Deans barely got a leg underneath him, and the rest is the problem of youth. All rush and selfishness. And that’s when he can get it up. She knew she should have cut him off earlier. Trying to be enthusiastic about his half hard jabbing motion could’ve won her the fucking Oscar. The last 5 years of marriage, currently ending, hadn’t been much better.   
She leaves him there to sleep, takes the spare to avoid the drunken sweats she knows he’s going to have tonight. The nightmares wake her up, she hears the sounds that Dean makes, guttural and broken. She goes to wake him, knowing it could help, and blocks a knife he pulls out of nowhere. It all happens like a choreographed dance, and so fast- its over before there’s even words.   
He’s breathing hard now, that sheen of crazed panic and regret in his eyes. He starts scooping up his clothes resignedly, “Sorry,” he slushes out.   
Mer lays a tentative hand on his arm, “ You can stay. No problem.”   
He’s relieved but its tinged with embarrassment. He smells like a distillery and he’s praying she didn’t notice his less than stellar performance. He goes to kiss her again even though he looks positively green. She dodges that as gracefully as she can, but he doesn’t miss the face she gets.  
“You don’t owe me this Dean.” She says it quiet- a secret. “You don’t owe anybody this.”  
She leaves him in the room, and he wants to reach out, God don’t leave me alone in here, I can’t bear it. But he doesn’t. He straightens his shoulders like his Dad’s watching, (he’s always watching in Dean’s mind) and lays back down like the sight of the empty bed doesn’t chill him. Counts his heartbeats, runs thru the better part of Led Zeppelin’s audio library in his head, thinks about how fast Mer’s arm stopped his knife. About how her eyes were tired, but not surprised.  
He hears the screen door slam shut and he puts on the bare minimum of modesty before he follows the noise. Smelling his way to the coffee, he grabs that first, heads out to see Mer smoking again. She hands him one without turning around, hearing him even though he’d done his best to pull a Winchester fast one; (Theres a flash of memory then, Dad sneaking out, even though Dean would wait up to make sure he didn’t). He eyes her right back when she tries to wall him out.  
“Some moves you got.” Its not the best opener, but Deans running on empty and his head is pounding a hole in the part of his skull where his eyes meet.   
“Some moves you got.” She echoes back but there’s an eyebrow flit Dean doesn’t like. He knows last night wasn’t his best game face.   
“Tell you what, you show me yours, I’ll show you mine.” Dean’s exasperated and the reds crawling up his neck in embarrassment.   
“I’ve seen enough of your moves thanks. But I’ll throw you a pity bone here.” 

Ah, the double entendres, Gotta love ‘em, Dean sarcastically muses. He sees the sheen of white around her ring finger and supposes that the fact he isn’t getting his ass handed to him is a big sign.  
“I had an asshole of my own once. Currently he’s recuperating in the county jail while being served divorce papers. Your little knife show in there was old hat for me.”  
“He hit you.”  
“He tried. I wrote it off at first, ya know?” She starts absentmindedly counting out excuses on her fingers, “ PTSD, eights years in the Corps, subpar VA care- shit will do that to a guy. It seemed like an accident for the first few months, he’d wake up from a nightmare and flip shit. I learned to sleep light. But then it got mean, all those stupid why questions piling up- , Why’d you wear such a short skirt to Stagger, why’d you not cook the meatloaf like I wanted, why, why, why, why…” She stops to take a heavy drag, holding it in like it was holding her together. She sees the look on his face, immediately back wheeling, ”Dean-o, I don’t need your sympathy. I’m fine. Water under bridges, scouts honor. But you, man alive, you got a trigger on you a mile wide. Care to share with the class?”  
There’s something about the night, its so quiet out here- just the wink of fireflies in the distance. Dean’s heartsore enough that a small confession doesn’t seem bad here in the dark. Nothing works better than a stranger for unburdening, especially one that doesn’t demand, someone that you don’t have to worry about after.  
“My Dad, well we work together and…its a hard job,” his eyes plead for her not to ask what it is, but in some semblance her nod seems like she understands enough to know not to ask. “He raised me, well me and my brother to take it on, shoulder the load. Except Sammy lit out like his ass was on fire about 3 months ago and Dad, well Dad’s never enjoyed the word no.” He’s watching the coffee chase level as he rotates the cup, hard enough to upset it, but not enough to spill.   
“Parents, man.” She reaches up, almost touches his shoulder, but decides against it. Dean doesn’t need a pat. “You need a place to crash?”  
“I should probably get moving. My old man’s expecting me to catch up with him.” Dean drags it out and its less appealing than more whiskey right now. The thought of another Sam shaped hole in a motel room, that black-never-good-enough expression on his father’s face when he catches up to him, well, the shines worn off.   
“You got money? A ride?” The face he pulls tells her everything she needs to know even though he covers it quicker than anyone she’s seen. And she knows where that loot’s going to come from.  
“I’ll figure it out.”  
“M’Sure you will, but- I’m not telling you how to live your best life here, but I got a place, and a cash job if you want it. Hope you’re better with cars then you are with a woman. Plus, not to fuck with your plans, but you did just go home with the soon to be ex-wife of one of three cops in this town.”  
The honesty isn’t what Dean wants to hear, but in a way, it’s refreshing. It’s the first person in a long time he doesn’t feel like he must play games with, and he does need a place to stay. And cash. It’d be easier to work for it- given he’d undoubtably just put a fucking bullseye on his back with the local PD. Fuck, it’d give Dad enough time to cool off from whatever perceived slight Dean had committed.   
He offers her a firm hand from a shaky body and the grip he gets back is tight enough to tease out a smile. “I’m your guy.” The first genuine smile in months slips out of Dean, and it takes a little of the cloud he carries off. He goes to kiss her afterward, and its so casual-the way she puts him off -he’s interested.  
“That bad?”  
“Boyo, I didn’t know we were racin’.” She smiles while she says it- no hard feelings. She shoulder checks him- gentle. It gives dean such a feeling of camaraderie despite the awkward moment.  
“M’Sorry.” He mumbles out, staring out at the black. He’s still wound tight from dreams, half wonders if he’s not smack in the middle of one without knowing it.   
“Dean, I’m thirty-five. I’ve been in a few unsuccessful rounds. No skin off my back.”  
“Man, I was drunk.”

“Still enthusiastic though…” She chuckles out.   
He frowns at her, that laugh isn’t unkind, but it’s knowing. Like enthusiasm is the only thing going for him.   
She sees it, cuts the rest off, and takes a deep drag like she’s preparing, “Dean, I’m gonna say this…because its late and criticism at nights somehow easier to take. You know how people seem to have forgot how to listen? All the words are there, signs even, and its like they drive of a cliff of fuck up anyway…”  
He nods even though it causes a lump to form in his throat.   
“Ya just ain’t listening right. See, women are kinda like cars- you know when you have her purring- you hear it in the rev of the engine, can feel how smooth that drive is. I saw you on the drive home, tapping out the shifts like you were running that three on the tree. You know about timing, just have to apply it to this.”  
Dean thinks about Baby, about how’d he’d know the sound of that engine, each scrape of every belt, could tell when she was thirsty or riding low. These sounds were the background noise of his life, they were every lullaby he’d told himself and Sam. He thinks about rolling reverent fingers down the line of her body, and correlates that kind of abstract worship with women. But it seems too personal, too much. He didn’t need chicks clinging on him just to fling them off. He ventures a wary glance at Mer, who laughs outright at the expression that’s working its way to sly.  
“I’m not trying to keep you Dean. I’m just saying that even if its for a night, we’re all lonely. You can have a single serving dose of affection if you pair it with truth.”  
He looks at her a long time. She figures that’s been enough, flicks her cigarette out and arches up, stretching into a walk. The screen door bumps closed behind her before Dean can think of anything to say. He stays out there long after the fireflies have gone out.


	2. Chapter 2

He stays. He keeps packing his stuff up at night like he’s going to light out the next morning- but he doesn’t. The garage, Meridian Auto, is nicer than Bobby’s. Smaller yard, but clean. Dean flushes when he thinks it, like it’s a betrayal of one of the few beacon lights he has left.   
He works on cars with Mer, he’s got a better handle on Chevys anyway- not that she’d admit that. There’s a ‘70 Chevelle, metallic gray, that he’s putting as 396 into, and he’s a little bit in love with it. There’s some big shot contractor, a few towns over, paying for the overhaul. They haven’t hooked up again; Dean’s thought about it- of course, but he’s turning over their last conversation in his head like it’s a broken transmission. At the end of the day they end up sitting on the porch in the dark, a few bottles of beer between them, insomnia their oldest worst friend.  
It’s been a few weeks and Mer stops sending Dean into town. She does all the parts runs, shopping and the like. When she gets back, sometimes she has this hollow look about her that makes Dean wary, and he wonders about what this small town thinks about her letting a drifter stay. She doesn’t talk about it and Dean’s not sure if he should bring it up.  
They don’t talk about before either. After that first night it was like all the curiosity burned out. They talk about music, movies, even after a while-books. And the ever-constant bond of sleek metal and the siren song of engines turning over. When it finally happens, Dean remembers what Mer said and pairs what he wants with the truth-“I’d like to redeem myself. With a friend.”  
Mer raises her beer, smiles the crooked sign that points to yes. When Dean rushes up, she lays a palm flat on his chest, “Dean (not Dean-o, or Deanster, or Deanareno, for once), you gotta show a chick that you’re not a rapey dick. Most women wanna have fun, but not the kind that brings trouble. Trouble adjacent has its own appeal, but that’s a different lesson.”  
Dean looks impatient at this; he’s already being slapped back with his A-game here.  
But Mer smiles that secret knowing smile and he gets his back up enough to want to shove down his pride.  
“So, what then?”  
“You laid down the gauntlet, let me pick it up. If I don’t, you know to keep shopping. Either the girls too much work for what you’re looking for, or she’s not into it. And you better believe that No you get- You hear me.” The last parts not a question, and despite knowing that there are actual monsters in the dark, a small part of him quakes inside at the tone.  
“I can be a dick, but I’m not a fucking dick.”  
“Good. If I’d a thought otherwise you’d never made it back here with me.”  
Mer saunters the footstep between them, laying a flirtatious hand on his shoulder.  
“I think we can skip the rest of the wordplay, save one. You don’t have’ta lie to us. We like sex too, and some women don’t need a ring to want to have it. Be upfront about it being temporary without making her feel like trash- Capice?”  
“Well, I mean… you said don’t lie.” Dean’s flabbergasted by the implication. He can’t think of a single non seedy way to ask a girl to fuck him for a night and not be mad when he doesn’t call.  
He thinks of the parade of high school girls he’d gone through the motions with just to break their hearts, leaving them before he left their town behind in the dirt. After Mom, Dean’s gonna be the one that leaves, cause getting left is too much. Then he thinks of Mer, how he’d known that it was gonna be upfront when he saw her, how he tasted the trouble on those other women in the bar. He finally gets it.  
“You’re looking for confidence here boyo. Look for the woman who can meet your eyes, could buy you a drink.”  
When he goes to kiss her, she sighs a little into his mouth and he’s half hard from that alone. Dean learned about the birds and bees from John, but that was layered with the perpetual impermanence their lives revolved around. She stops talking but she’s still leading Dean around, showing him how to linger on lips, drown in softness that isn’t love, but comfort- its care. She trails fingers slowly down his shirt, and makes him jump by slightly tweaking a nipple, when he freezes, she takes his hand and grazes it down her body, showing him pressure. It moves along like this- follow the leader- touch, until touch burns; taste without rush; wonder without guilt. It’s as easy as floating and there’s such a relief to it- that first drink of cool water after days in the desert.  
Dean gains a new appreciation for goosebumps, for that fine tremor along a women’s back when he’s hit something that makes her sing. Mer teaches him to read skin and muscle much like John taught him how to track anything through terrain. There’s a pride in making her quake, that earned smugness of easing a woman into orgasm. It has a high to it that Dean knows will never retreat or lose its luster. It’s a gift that he can give that has nothing to do with killing.  
There are other pleasant surprises, laughter during sex, a lightness that comes from affection. Dean figures it’d never be enough to fill that gaping maw inside him, but it’s enough not to feel that scratching of desperate loneliness that clawed its way up his first night here. And after a lifetime of being surrounded by men, Dean’s impressed with how much easier life is, how considerate woman are. How much even just the right kind of night with the right kind of woman can take the edge off about anything. The day he broke a motor mount and had to rip everything back out to fix it, he was buzzing with the white-hot rage at himself he’d associated almost exclusively with hunting. Normally he’d have gone out to try to get his dick sucked or bury that rage inside someone else’s body, but now he eased it off by pleasing Mer. It was so nice to give without worrying about taking.  
Any time Dean or Mer get too close, they shutter themselves off for a few days. Practicing at parting, teaching Dean her best graceful goodbye a slice at a time. When Mer feels like Dean’s conquered affection, she tries heat, comes onto him in the garage on top of the Chevelle. The image of her spread eagle on the hood about gave him a heart attack. Since she was laid out like a feast, he figured he’d visit downtown. She’d given him some significant pointers on lady head- Always make sure your nails are short and blunted… Just curl them a bit- there… just graze your thumb over it…and God that howling she takes up lets him know more than words could ever tell. There was an edge of desperation that had nothing to do with despair and driving Mer over the edge only made his anticipation greater, that moment when he’d slip inside sweeter.  
When he rises up, still slicked with grease in some places, pleased grin etched across his face, he buries himself in Mer before the aftershocks have worn off. It shocks a keening wail out of her and he begins a brutal rhythm where the only thing that borders on pain is his grip. She’s so close, and the angle of the hood is perfect for lapping at her, Dean tucks that inside his memory, cataloging the best moments. He’d figured out that women were more like manuals- you had to be able to multitask- feel the car and you could shift without even using the clutch if you time it right.  
Afterwards, Mer lay spent on the hood, Dean softening inside her as he nuzzled at her neck. She muses- this boy has a lot to give. There’s a softness to Dean, a yearning for affection that spoke of a lifetime of denial. She hopes he’ll settle into whatever he needs sooner or later, but figures she’s doing him a favor in the meantime. You could rob Peter to pay Paul when it came to needing warmth, and this was the long game of being able to cheat the system. There’s a patience to him, that eager to please iron kind of control that’s surprising for his age. She didn’t know how Dean had grown up, or what had made him so introspective, but she’d seen him spend long nights in the inky silence, contemplative like an older man. Too much time out in the black. She wants to pick it at, she’s curious by nature and Dean’s such a wonderful mix of contradictions, but her gut tells her to let it lie.  
Some things are only meant for now, not forever. And some stories can’t ask to be told until they’re ready and Dean’s are still simmering.  
During the day, when they’re not wrenching on the Chevelle, or that ’66 Mustang Mer had found lonely in a dump yard; Mer begins to teach Dean how to cook. Not macaroni and cheese with fluff kind of cook, as he’d filled Mer in- sheepishly proud. Not the things you can throw together in a motel room, but the real kind of home cooking that Mer’s grandmother had taught her. Fried chicken and potatoes from scratch, casseroles with chunks of ham and cheese that melts right off onto the plate, the crusty bake of a new loaf of bread. Mer jokes that she’s training Dean to be of the non-asshole variety. She wonders sometimes if its too domestic, gives Dean the wrong idea, but everybody likes to eat. And there’s something about Dean that makes Mer want to do something kind for him, like she could make up for the lack of it up until now.  
It lights something up inside him, this small taste of home. It reminds him of the nice things about before, memories that don’t burn with long cold fires. It eases some of that ache buried in his heart, and he wishes, not for the first time, that Sam was here. Sam, who always wanted a traditional Thanksgiving that Dean didn’t know how to cook, Sam- who tired of mac and cheese and hot dogs too quickly for Dean’s limited culinary skills at twelve. Dad would’ve scoffed at it, but Sam would’ve been impressed, even that sullen quiet Sam who had looked at Dean with something akin to contempt before he left.  
It’s been two months when Joe, Mer’s estranged husband, shows up; Dean hangs behind her- still in the house like she asked. The ripples in the screen door doesn’t stop Joe from tracking Dean, from spewing up nasty comments and threats. “The whole godamn town is fucking laughing at you, you know. Thirty five and you’ve got a punk kid drifter out here fucking you to sleep every night- while you’re still married to me. I’ve half a mind to have Becker come out here and card the little shit to make sure he’s legal. I didn’t think you were this fucking cheap.” It doesn’t stop there but Deans seeing red already at the way he talks to her like she’s nothing. His fingernails carve new lines into his palms as he tries to keep his promise. When Joe gets a little too close, Dean opens the screen door, he doesn’t move out farther than that, but Joe can see the dead eyes he’s throwing and takes a step forward before Mer slaps him back. “Speaking of Becker, isn’t he supposed to be enforcing that fucking useless restraining order?” She eyes Dean as she says it and Deans reminded of the thousand times his Dad told him- go back inside son. He flushes with insult and lets the screen scream shut, banging against the frame. He moves back into the dim-chastised but keeps an eye on her anyway.  
Mer stays calm, but later- after Joe leaves, Dean catches her crying. She’s sitting on the back porch this time, away from their usual spot, peeling the label off the beer bottle in a perfect spiral. He hands her a fresh beer and doesn’t say anything, Mer taught him the importance of silence this summer and this moment is ripe with the need of it.  
After a long moment and enough cigarettes for even Dean to worry about her lungs, she breathes out, ”Like I give a fuck what they all think about me.”  
Dean doesn’t love her. There was a moment in the kitchen, baking, where his heart tripped a little, but love’s a choice and Dean kept it to himself. But respect and friendship run deep and he holds out his arms and realizes that real comfort is free. There doesn’t have to be any false promises for it to be genuine.  
Like she can read his mind, Mer damn near quotes his brain, “Thanks, Dean. Thanks for not trying to feed me bullshit.”  
“You still love ‘im.” Dean says. It’s not a question. He keeps a friendly arm slung around her shoulders until she shrugs him off.  
“I still love who I thought he was, who he could be on his best day. It’s not the same. It’ll pass.”  
“The people you love do fucked up shit sometimes, and we forgive them. You gonna forgive him?” There’s a tease of jealousy somewhere deep in his guts, but he smooths it out the same way he’d fix a dent.  
“No. Not this time. Sometimes you do, sometimes it’s worth it,” she looks at him like she can read his future, “But whatever we had? It’s gone now. Gone in a way that I’m not sure it was ever really there.”  
There’s so many things Dean wants to say, wise things about loss and fires and gone. He feels like he could write a book on all the different ways people are gone. But the words are sticky; he chokes on half formed platitudes. That road is in the dark place he doesn’t like to look at, the place he covers with jokes and sex and booze-already.  
When Dean knocks on her door that night, she only opens it a sliver.  
“Not tonight. Important teaching moment boyo, never on an emotional shitstorm.”  
She goes to close the door and Dean stops her,” I want to be here for you.” It feels like the truest thing he’s ever said. It’s everything he wishes he could say to his family.  
“You are,” Mer whispers, reaching up to ghost a touch around his face, “but neither you nor I would like where that road goes. It’s easy to fall into counting on things Dean…and you’re not here to stay.” The door closes with a soft click. “Maybe tomorrow,” comes out through the door.  
When Mer wakes up in the morning, it’s to Dean’s tongue. At her shocked face, Dean pulls away, “It’s tomorrow.”  
Mer laughs so hard that Dean gets impatient and turns it into a moan. “No Mr. Miyagi routine this morning, huh?”   
When it’s so right its almost blind- and Mer goes over the edge, Dean eases off and heads down to get breakfast started. After bacon, Mer drags Dean into the shower, readjusts his grip a few times before she lets him heft a leg up and slide into her from behind. It’s a position Deans embarrassingly familiar with, but this time around it’s more than just not looking at a face.  
Dean thinks of all the times he knows what to say- assuring Sam, bolstering John. He thinks of all the things he’d like to hear, the reassurance that he can never ask for. It makes something snap into place seamlessly and he murmurs into her ear about how gorgeous she is, how delicious it is to feel her wrapped around him. It’s steady, somewhere in his brain there’s a metronome that’s finally clicking right. Mer’s as generous with words as she is with everything else, tells him how well he fits, how she loves the curve of his arm under her breasts.   
When they’re finished, all clean and shining, Mer runs a smooth finger down Deans bicep, traces the veins in his hands, chases skin to grace along the vee of his hips and makes a low sound in her throat that does more for Dean’s pride than anything else. He reciprocates, finding the hollow around her collarbone, that soft patch of skin behind her ear. Its admiration, the kind that doesn’t cheapen or demean. Dean’s heart trips again, the wet shine of Mer’s hair, that smile- half wistful sliding across her face.  
She slips away before almost becomes is.  
Summers slipping into autumn now, it’s getting crisper at night but it doesn’t stop their ritual of nighttime beers. The beer just arrives a little earlier now; both Mer and Dean have slept better in the last few months. They don’t have to burn the night away on cigarettes anymore. The tip of Dean’s tongue is burning with potential what- ifs. Sams in California, Dads in the wind by now. He could stay here. Stay with Mer. There’d be cars and food and late nights like this that don’t hang any uncomfortable silences. He enjoys knowing where he is every morning, sleeping in the same bed. The potential teases him, and somehow he knows Mer would argue about age and divorce and other inconsequential things that Dean would bulldoze to get to her.  
He’s about got his defense planned when he hears it, that low rumble ground into his heart. He could measure his life by it, and he’d never been sorrier to hear it. That rod goes back into his spine, relaxation melting away. The past few months seem more a dream now, in the harsh light of the Impala.  
Mer was meant to stay, and he was always meant to go. This life always came back and took its pound of flesh, and he was a fool to believe otherwise. All he’d do is drag the monsters here to her door. She reads it in his face, he can see that if he’d had that stillborn conversation, it would’ve gone well. But John had drilled the commandment to obey into Dean’s skull better than the bible and he was already on his feet to grab his stuff.  
Mer’s holding up the doorframe, aiming for casual and failing as Dean’s stuffing things into the bag he’d finally put away in the closet.  
“It him isn’t it. Your Dad.” Dean freezes up at Mer’s question, knuckles going whiter with the strain of locking up the misery that’s threatening to spill out. He’s got enough grave dirt on his boots, and he doesn’t want any of it to be Mer’s.  
“Yeah.”  
“You don’t have to…”  
“What, go with him?” Dean roughly grumbles out a laugh that has nothing to do with mirth. He hears a honk and sweat starts to trickle down the small of his back. “Too late for me now.” He says it like a death knell, no room for argument.  
Mer opens her mouth and shuts it again. She crosses to him and reaches up through Dean’s tense unwelcoming frame and hugs him anyway.  
“You’re always welcome back Dean-o.”  
He grips her so hard he can hear the crunch of her spine as it cracks. He heads out, doesn’t look back, sliding into the Impala next to a silent John.  
Mer runs out as John’s reversing, slams an open hand against the window. Dean rolls it down with a condescending look on his face that doesn’t fit there anymore. She just hands him a brown grocery bag and one tight grip to his shoulder later and she’s disappearing back into the house.  
Dean takes a peek as John starts to lecture him about responsibility, about the inconvenience of having to double back after him. There’s food, enough that he doesn’t have to miss meals. Under that is money, more than he’d ever have accepted from her. Under that’s a note.  
Dean,  
There aren’t words for how grateful I am that you came along when you did. I think it’s the same for you. Everybody needs somebody, even if its only for a little while. Don’t forget that and try not to be an asshole. You’re one of the good ones.  
Come back and see me if you can. This old bitch likes company.  
Love,  
Mer  
He tucks it into his wallet.  
He doesn’t see her again. Years pass, Dean goes through so many shifts of self it could cause a backlash. But he never forgets Mer, even as a demon he’d been considerate enough to get the chick off. He’s picking up the mail in town one day when he sees the envelope, thick with crossed out address labels and failed to deliver stamps. Its beaten and worn- Dean Winchester it’s scrawled- the name hadn’t changed.  
When he opens it, its thick with legal documents, and one short piece of paper-  
Dean, couldn’t think of anyone else to take care of this. Never did find another one like you.  
-Mer  
The deed to the house, the garage, and one 1953 F-100 are inside, already marked with just his first name- like she knew. He uses the good ID to get it cleared with lawyers, makes some calls to Garth and the others about the new safe house. Goes to pick up the truck with Sam, who doesn’t know what to say. Dean doesn’t know how to explain, not in a way that doesn’t sound tawdry. So, he says nothing, but on the drive home, sitting in that truck that still impossibly smells like her (he never forgot that smell- lavender and metal shavings) he cries and its cathartic. When he finally switches on the stereo, there’s already a Zeppelin tape inside and it makes him laugh.  
She still runs like a dream.


End file.
